Help with slow growing plants?

Cmak88

Member
I went to my hydro shop today, and turns out i havent been giving enough water/nutes.
I was only feeding maybe 50mill at a time in fear of over watering, he asked me about run off and i said i never have any when i water... and came to the conclusion that i simply am not/havnt been giving my plants enough of anything...

I have flushed my plants tonight when i got home to try and rid of any salts stagnant in the coco. ..
My question now is, are they saveable? Should i start again? They are 4 weeks old and about 7cm with 1 set of leaves..

If i start watering them properly with root booster and nutes now will they come back? Or am i fighting a loosing battle?

Cheers guys any input much appreciated
 

Sunny Organics

Well-Known Member
I went to my hydro shop today, and turns out i havent been giving enough water/nutes.
I was only feeding maybe 50mill at a time in fear of over watering, he asked me about run off and i said i never have any when i water... and came to the conclusion that i simply am not/havnt been giving my plants enough of anything...

I have flushed my plants tonight when i got home to try and rid of any salts stagnant in the coco. ..
My question now is, are they saveable? Should i start again? They are 4 weeks old and about 7cm with 1 set of leaves..

If i start watering them properly with root booster and nutes now will they come back? Or am i fighting a loosing battle?

Cheers guys any input much appreciated
wish i could help you more but i have no prior experience with coco. things could work differently in your situation. i know for a fact in soil you dont need any nutrients for that part of their life cycle just plain water is perfect up to their 2nd even 3rd week of life. careful with your hydro shop guys man best of luck bro!
 

Got4m2e0

Well-Known Member
Lol... Okay, don't worry about it they are fine. However next time water them right as you plant them of right before and saturate the coco. Now funny thing with coco, I have found that you want the medium to get a little in the dry side for the first two weeks before watering because the plants otherwise seem to get lazy and won't grow. Once they get to a decent size for the pot. Or can dry out the medium over night then switch to watering 2 to 3 or even 4 times with about 20% runoff to keep whatever the plant isn't using from building up in the medium.

BTW good choice with coco for hydro. The coco acts like a buffer to protect from wide swings in PH and you don't need to worry about a pump blowing or long power outage killing them like you would with dwc or some of the others..

Watch you Ph, canna Is a good line, little pricey but good none the less. Don't waste your time with the booster, I wasted plenty on that and it did nothing. I wanted it to do something but it was the same with or without. Since this is your first time I will suggest you just use the A+B and maybe just use a little rhizoctonic and cannazyme which will protect your roots from disease and the tonic works very well. Don't go adding other additives from other brands until you get a few grows under your belt so you will at least get a feel for what to look for. And don't freak out and do anything rash, 9 times out of 10 people do more harm than good when they do that.

With coco, you are growing hydro, so yeah once they are established you want to treat them like hydro and don't let the medium get dry!!! So the fun part is figuring out how to water so many times or automating. I program micro processors so I made a little setup that monitors soil humidity and waters at the set amount of moister in soil, which is set at 50% max water holding capacity of the coco medium and the plants love it. I used to use blumats which was a very analog way to do things but they either gave too much or too little. There are some interesting setups I saw on this site and others to automate and I would suggest taking a look because once those girls get big it's almost impossible to water them as much as they would like without being there to water at least three times a day. You can get away with twice, but three is better.

Good luck, don't worry as long as they are alive they will grow. It's a WEED after all and you would be suprised at what they can handle. When in flower an oops can cost you some overall weight in the end but not during veg.

You watered till runoff, now let the top of the medium get a little dry before you water again. Depending on your humidity and other conditions that could take 4 days a week or even two. Then you will start to see them start to dry up quicker so you will want to gradually increase frequency and start to not let the top ever get dry again. That's when you treat cox like hydro.



As for the light, it doesn't matter just raise it a little if you get bleaching on the leaves.
 
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Got4m2e0

Well-Known Member
To make sure I'm clear on what I meant about the light. It doesn't matter because your temps are good and the top leaves are not canoeing or have some yellow splotches that will look like a K def or cal mag def. most will suggest CFL or lower wattage light do to less heat and intensity so instead of wasting power on a higher wattage that is wasted because you lifted the light, you could save a few bucks and still get growth at the early stages. My view is screw it and I raise the 1000 watt to four feet above give of take how they handle it. Some indicas, due to leaf morphology, cants take high heat and light because they have more area and less perimeter on the leaf which is good for lower light and cool temp conditions and they will tend to bleach easier with less light than a saliva.

Another thing about canna. They expect you to use water that has an ec of 400 us that is comprised mostly of calcium aNd magnesium. If using RO water you will want to supplement cal and mag. I suggest general hydro organic because it doesn't have any added N and that can become a pain during flower. Or just find a brand with just ca and mg alone. If you don't have an EC meter then get one. Same with a PH meter. I prefer them separated because a PH meter only has a life span of a year give or take. I have had one for two and it still worked fine. Also once you figure out how much is needed per a gallon you will find you don't use the extra meter too often if at all.

If you are using tap water. Know what your water had in it or expect to have varying results then someone else that has different water that could be having great results.

I would suggest RO so you control what salts are in it and not have to wonder or have funny things pop up because it may have too much of something or chlorine and cholomide like city water tends to have.

Sorry almost forgot all that.
 

Cmak88

Member
Thanks very much for that mate!
Couple things there to take into account for sure.
Here is a update on them after there flush lastnight.
They sure aint dying i will just have to be more patient and wait it out i guess..
Definatly going to purchase a T5 setup for veg tho. Running the MH seems a bit pricey when i can get the same results in veg srate.
Yes my PH is 5.8, i metered the run off after flush and it was 5.6 so ph is fine.
Took them outside for quik pix
20161022_111738.jpg 20161022_111738.jpg 20161022_111706.jpg 20161022_111738.jpg
 

Got4m2e0

Well-Known Member
I would not concern myself with ph of runoff and here is why.
Coco has a buffering effect and helps to prevent Ph swings, to a degree. but to get a true reading for where the medium is at you need to take a small amount and go through this process to find out and in the end it amounts to very little anyways. as long as you keep it around 5.8 going in, you should be fine.

Now that they are nice and watered you really shouldn't have anything to worry about for about a week or two. when the top starts to look a little dry water to runoff again. slowly as they grow you will need to up the frequency. Best thing to do in the mean time is to ignore them and find something else to occupy your time.

Also, if for any reason the COCO gets bone dry, you will want to water slowly. parts can become a little hydrophobic so only part of the coco will be wet while other sections wont have time to absorb. You wont have to worry about that till you have a very dense root system and the coco is a little compact like any medium tends to do with time and water.

Enjoy,
 
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